graphics cards

Every so often, hardware makers strike out in a new direction, improving their product in an almost random manner — double the shader processors! stick two cards together! — and sometimes it actually has good results. The big move happening right now is a vast increase in the amount of RAM available to the video card, even though that’s not really what’s limiting… Read More

A couple weeks ago we posted about allegations of widespread solder failure in NVIDIA graphics cards. This is further confirmation of that, as a study done at my alma mater comparing high-lead (90% lead, 10% tin) and eutectic (60% lead, 40% tin) found that under controlled circumstances,
“…plastic energy produced in the high-lead layer is about 100 times larger than in the… Read More

NVIDIA’s “abnormal” number of GPU failures have been the subject of much discussion and speculation during the last couple months. The culprit seems to have been the high-lead solder, which everybody rightly assumed NVIDIA would abandon — after all, it’s cost the company hundreds of millions in direct costs and probably far more in lost sales, lost brand… Read More

The video card scene right now is like watching a boxing match. AMD dealt NVIDIA a solid shot to the face with the 4870 and 4850, causing NVIDIA to lower their prices in an evasive maneuver. NVIDIA has responded by throwing cards at the budget segment under $75. AMD of course disparaged this move, saying it was “quick and dirty,” and said something I feel is insightful:
“If… Read More

SLI rendering has gained a lot of popularity lately, even to the point where people are making SLI rigs of pre-SLI’ed cards like the 9800GX2 and the 4870X2. The problem is that drivers and motherboards aren’t really set up to take advantage of two cards. Sure, it works a lot better than one card, but Hydra feels that it’s time mobos got an integrated SLI controller that… Read More

I’ve been saying this a lot this year: it’s a good time to be in the market for a video card! NVIDIA and AMD are firing volley after volley of significant improvements and price reductions. Although NVIDIA’s on-GPU physics processing is compelling, AMD’s new 4870 X2 (essentially two of the impressive 4870 cards stuck together) provides an insane amount of power for… Read More

Son, I remember the days when chips were 55 meters! Ain’t no one ever even heard of a nano back then. Had troops o’ monkeys cartin’ ice packs to and from the walk-in freezer just to keep that machine from meltin’ down and burying us all in hot copper — dag nabbit!
Seriously, though. Nvidia’s newest, fastest cards are being done on a 55nm process, which… Read More

You may remember Matrox. They were a significant competitor back in the days when the graphics card scene was TNT2 vs. Voodoo3. The dark horse was always Matrox, whose dual-display-oriented cards always perplexed and intrigued me. I still don’t use more than one monitor but it’s far more common these days, with people like our own Doug, who is rocking I believe four monitors at… Read More

I could tell you about the list of improvements as long as my arm, including vastly increased memory bandwidth, 65nm fabrication, and huge increases in shader and thread counts. I could bore you with more technical specs and statistics.
But I think what you really need to know is that it runs Bioshock at 2560×1600 with 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering at nearly 60fps. If… Read More

So you’ve got this big, powerful video card stuck to your computer, just sitting there on idle unless you’re playing a game or rendering something. Why not put it to work? Nvidia has made it possible to take advantage of the carefully engineered parallel architecture of today’s graphics cards through its CUDA (Complete Unified Device Architecture). Macs have missed out… Read More

Just don’t try to play any games with it. I thought this was worth mentioning since people have complained of the cost of DX10 cards. Well, now you can get one for 50 clams. Of course, for that amount of cash you’re probably getting 64 megs of RAM (they don’t specify), which is almost enough to run Daikatana. But if you’ve got it set up right, you’ll be… Read More

Now that GPU manufacturers are touting their ability to tackle high-def content, it’s a good idea to investigate exactly which GPUs you should spend your money on. The two main camps, nVidia and ATI/AMD, both have several GPUs on the market, at several different price points, so choosing one is quite a hassle. Thankfully, AnandTech put several GPUs to the test, seeing how they fared… Read More

PC Gamers will always find a way to justify buying the latest, greatest card on the market. ATI and nVidia know this, which is why they keep releasing cards on a weekly basis. ATI’s latest offerings include the Radeon 2400 HD and 2600 HD. Both cards will be available at fine retailers online and off.
Both GPUs feature AMD’s Unified Video Decoder technology, which lessens the load… Read More

Nothing beats free stuff. Whether it’s a free ice cream cone or a free iPod, both are just so, so sweet. Those of you who still shell out $1000 a year to upgrade your PC for games will be happy to know that Valve and ATI have struck a bit of a deal that runs in your favor. Owners of ATI RadeonT graphics cards will be able to download free games from Valve’s Steam service.
So you have… Read More

Graphics card specialist nVidia will launch a host of new video cards next month, with what appears to be an overclocked 8800 GTX leading the charge. “Sources” said that nVidia will call its new top of the line card the 8800 Ultra and is intended to one-up AMD’s yet to be released Direct X 10 graphics card. (That card was supposedly to be unveiled last week, but AMD got cold… Read More

, the US Modular PowerAid Mobile is definitely handy to have around. For $49.99, you get a compact multi-product charger for portable devices. Five connectors are included to use with various devices like cell phones, PDAs, iPods, etc. and it’s small and lightweight enough (less than 5 ounces) for you to throw in your pocket or bag.
The PowerAid Mobile begins shipping this month. Hit… Read More

Can you judge someone by the size of their GPU’s heatsink-and-fan assembly? Because, wow, this thing is huge. Shiny, black and pretty, but huge. Regardless, I guess it’s so big on the upcoming top-shelf 768MB Nvidia 8800GTX because the card is just that powerful. DailyTech got its grubby, benchmarking hands on the card and roughed it up a bit using Half Life 2: Lost Coast, Quake… Read More

It’s always fun to look at, dream about, lust after the high-end stuff, but when it comes down to it, most of us go right for the midrange option on whatever we’re buying. That’s what makes the new CrossFire-ready 256MB X1650 XT so appealing. It’s reasonably priced at $149 and has a good helping of the features you’ll find on the more expensive cards from the… Read More

Due to too many returns on GeForce 7900 GT, Nvidia is forbidding its partners from overclocking the upcoming G80 cards, according to The Inquirer. The site backs up the report by bringing up how Nvidia locked down overclocking on the dual-GPU 7950 GX2 cards. However, I4U is calling bullshit on it, since its in possession of an overclocked XFX 7950 GX2 XXX.
I have to agree with I4U on this one. Read More

The Radeon X1950 Pro from ATI that launched today is the company’s $199 competition against Nvidia’s GeForce 7900 GS. Based on a new graphics chip — the R570 — it’s the first of ATI’s cards to not need an external dongle to connect two cards in a dual-GPU CrossFire configuration. The old, thick-cabled dongle was not only a pain to connect, but was far… Read More